Friday, May 11, 2012

So... free speech is too expensive?

"Los Angeles officials say the costs of police overtime and cleaning up
local parks due to the Occupy protests have nearly doubled to $5
million, as cities across the country continue to tally the protests’
price tag."

A couple of things. First, when did the cost of free speech become a problem? I'm under a Permanent Injunction in Florida because, for one reason, a judge there thought it was getting too expensive for the county to allow us to protest.

Second, why do cities constantly overspend on Occupy? When I visited Denver there were up to 20 cops constantly surrounding the Occupy encampment there. NOTHING was going on. It was just a huge over-reaction by the city to some protester-campers. In the perhaps 12 hours I was there the city could have easily just had one cop there for most of that time (some of it was a march through city streets, so I can see the need there).

So the cities overspend, then whine that the protests are costing them too much. Ridiculous.